Summer's End
by Yoyeen
Summary: It's the summer before season six and Pacey and Joey have a few things to think about before Dawson and Audrey come back home.


SUMMER'S END  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: Takes place after the season five finale, but Pacey and Joey never caught Audrey and Dawson at the airport. Instead, they've been spending the summer together in Capeside.  
  
"I think you just want to see me in a wet t-shirt."   
  
Pacey smiled. "I'm insulted, Joey. I'm trying to be a friend here."   
  
Joey rolled her eyes and pressed her body firmly against the hard surface of the house. Although he knew she was within reach, he wouldn\'t pounce yet. He would want to surprise her, catch her completely off guard. Lull her into a place where security existed and then attack.   
  
"Friends don't let friends get wet," she countered.   
  
She heard the creak of the floorboards and knew he was crossing the porch of the B&B. She took a breath and watched the gentle sway of the grass in the distance. It was the end of summer and the heat still lingered. The water would feel good on her, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of getting her.   
  
"I think that's 'Friends don't let friends drive drunk.'"   
  
"That too."   
  
He laughed and moved the water balloon to his left hand and then back to his right. He was itching to get her back.   
  
"C'mon Joey. Audrey mentioned the water balloon fight at the end of the semester, and how you pelted the professor instead of a fellow classmate. I'm trying to prepare you for next semester. Sharpen those skills, you know."   
  
"This is hardly fair Pacey," she replied and then, then she quietly backed away from his voice.   
  
"How so?"   
  
Her fingers were behind her, touching the house for safety and security while keeping her eye on the corner. She heard the faint sound of the earth under his shoes and frowned. Looking at her surroundings, the only other viable options would be to duck behind a tree or run into the woods. Except Pacey knew those woods better than she did, and those trees didn't seem like such good hiding places. Damn it. She would have to stay here and move around the perimeter of the house.   
  
"Well...you have a water balloon and I do not."   
  
He stopped. Her voice seemed to getting farther and farther away. Sneaky, sneaky, Josephine.   
  
"Is it my fault that you were a tad too enthusiastic and wasted all your balloons in one shot?"   
  
She snorted. "I hardly wasted them; you were an open target."   
  
He shook his head. He had been an open target. Sitting down in a fold- out chair, hands tucked under his head, he hadn't seen the attack coming. He'd been too busy relaxing on his day off of work. As she continued to throw the balloons at him, giggling no less, he chased her. He managed to wrangle a blue-filled balloon away from her and he wasn't going to let it go to waste.   
  
"Uh-huh, Potter."   
  
He was close. She could feel him. She tried another approach. "This is childish. I don't want to play anymore."   
  
"Funny how this wasn't childish when I was the target, now was it?"   
  
"I see the error of my ways now."   
  
He laughed wickedly and then his laughter trailed off. It was absolutely silent. Eerily silent. She nervously tucked a strand of hair the wind had blown toward her face. "Uh, Pacey?"   
  
"Isn't it amazing the clarity that comes with defeat, Jo?" He was close. Right behind her to be exact and before she had a chance to turn around, she felt the impact of the water on her back. She sighed. The water did feel good, but he didn't have to know that.   
  
Joey turned to face him and held the back of her t-shirt away from her body. She glared. "I'm wet."   
  
He smiled. "Just the way I like you, Potter."   
  
**********   
  
Joey wrapped her damp hair in a towel and headed for the living room barefoot. She found Pacey sitting on the couch, his dark hair still wet from his shower, and a bowl of popcorn in his lap. She sat down next to him.   
  
"What are we watching tonight?"   
  
"Wet Naked Girls."   
  
Joey frowned when the screen did in fact have what Pacey described. "I don't think so." She stole the remote and flipped the channel to something not so sleazy. Jeopardy. There, that was better.   
  
"Alright. I've seen one wet, naked girl today anyway," he grinned. "My quota was met."   
  
"I wasn't naked."   
  
"Not yet."   
  
Instead of answering, she took the towel off her head and slung it over an empty chair. Then she leaned back against his outstretched arm before grabbing some popcorn.   
  
"What is Quito?" she said to the television, just as Pacey pulled his arm away from the back of the couch. A contestant echoed Joey's answer and she smiled.   
  
"Jo, you're dripping."   
  
She lifted her head. "What?"   
  
"Your hair. It's dripping all over my arm," he said, mildly amused.   
  
Pacey got up and grabbed her towel. He moved her to the ground and she now sat on the floor. Gently, he took her hair and ran the towel over it. Soon he started rubbing the towel vigorously over her wet locks.   
  
"Don't do that. It makes my hair frizzy."   
  
"I've never seen you with frizzy hair."   
  
"That's because I don't dry my hair that way," she said, looking up at him.   
  
He began gently drying her hair without rubbing. Eventually, her hair was almost dry and he threw the towel back onto the chair. His hands were on her shoulders and his mouth settled next to her ear. "Relax Jo."   
  
"I am relaxed," she replied, somewhat defensively.   
  
He began massaging her shoulders, uncoiling the tense muscles. "Yeah. I can see that. You are relaxed," he told her as he worked on a particularly tight muscle.   
  
She gave a small laugh. "I guess with the summer almost over and me going back to Worthington...it's making me just a little tense."   
  
Pacey nodded and slowly continued massaging her shoulders. When she grabbed more popcorn and answered Alex Trebek correctly, he said, "It's because they're coming back tomorrow, isn't it?"   
  
She shrugged wearily and never took her eyes off the television. He sighed and picked up the bowl of popcorn, leaving behind the softness of her skin. "I'm gonna get some more food. You want anything from the kitchen?"   
  
Joey shook her head.   
  
*********   
  
"Pacey?" she called out. It was taking him an awful long time to grab some food.   
  
"Over here, Jo," he called back. She followed the sound of his voice and found him standing in front of a hall closet.   
  
"What are you doing?"   
  
"Looking for some games."   
  
She stood next to him and surveyed the cluster of games: Operation, Scrabble, Life, Monopoly, Hungry, Hungry Hippos, Checkers, and Chess. Nothing really captured her interest, but she saw that Pacey had reached for the Scrabble board. Then she remembered what she had done one night with the Scrabble letters and she reached for the board.   
  
"I got it, Jo," he said when her hands held the box.   
  
"Uh, you know I'm in the mood for Operation."   
  
"I checked. Some of the bones are missing and his nose no longer blinks. It would have been my first choice, too."   
  
He gently pried her fingers from the board with a smile and walked over to the kitchen. Joey bit her bottom lip and ran after him. She stole the box away with her quick movements.   
  
"Hey!"   
  
"I would rather play Life," she said, holding the box behind her back while she backed away from him.   
  
"And I would rather play Scrabble. What is wrong with you?"   
  
"Nothing," she said quickly.   
  
He immediately grew suspicious. "Are you hiding something from me? What's in that Scrabble box, Josephine?"   
  
"Nothing. I just want to play something else," she shrugged, trying to act casual.   
  
Pacey crossed his arms over his chest and arched a brow. "I'm bigger than you and I can get that Scrabble box."   
  
"Do you really want to play Scrabble that badly?" she said, hugging the box tightly.   
  
"Joey-" he started and then advanced.   
  
Panicked, she started to run away from him. He only laughed and shook his head before chasing after her, mumbling something about her being weird. She only made it as far as the coffee table. His hands encircled her from behind and she fell down onto the couch, but not before he twisted so that he bore the brunt of the pain when they landed. Before she had time to think, he grabbed the box and sat up, leaving her on the couch. He opened it and saw nothing unusual, but when he dumped the letters onto the floor, instead of seeing independent letters scatter, some were connected together. Joey's face scrunched up as she sat quietly on the couch watching him.   
  
Pacey picked up a set of tiles glued together. Flipping them over, he noticed the connected tiles spelled out True Love. He checked the others. Pacey and Joey. The last one had Joey, then a hand drawn heart on a blank tile, followed by Pacey.   
  
"When did you do this?" he asked quietly, examining the tiles.   
  
She cleared her throat. "Um, the day after we came back on True Love. Bessie asked me to move some of the junk into the hall closet and I found that old Scrabble game," she shrugged. "I got a little caught up in it, I guess."   
  
"I'll say."   
  
She frowned and he noticed her cheeks were a slight pink color from his discovery. "You never did anything like that before? Stupid, mushy stuff for me?"   
  
His finger traced the lettering and his eyes were cast down on the floor. Shrugging, he replied, "Some stuff."   
  
"What stuff?" she asked, her curiosity peaked.   
  
"Stuff that I swore you would never know about," he said tersely.   
  
"I want to know," she smiled.   
  
He stared at her for a few minutes before nodding somewhat reluctantly. "Okay. I'll show you. Grab your coat."   
  
"Can't you just tell me?"   
  
"No, you have to see this."   
  
She sighed. "Okay, give me a second."   
  
Joey got up and disappeared down the hall to retrieve her coat. Pacey looked down at the scattered mess on the floor and bent down to clean it up. He placed everything back into the box, but when his hand touched the True Love piece, he stopped. Swallowing strongly, he picked it up and placed it in his pocket.   
  
**********   
  
"I've finally pushed you to the edge, haven't I? With all my sarcasm and my eye rolling. That's why we're standing on this dock. Soon, I'll be sleeping with the fishes - "   
  
"Nope," Pacey interrupted. "Although it did cross my mind there for just a second, but I would never be able to pull it off. The cops would immediately come and question me about your disappearance since we've spent so much time together this summer. I would crack under the pressure during questioning and like the guy in The Tell-Tale Heart, scream out, 'Villains, dissemble no more! I admit the deed!'"   
  
He walked ahead of her and he heard her laugh in the night air. The planks of the dock shifted under their weights as they made their way toward the end. Pacey's flashlight accompanied the light of the full moon, illuminating their path.   
  
"A library card in the hands of Pacey Witter is a dangerous thing," she mused.   
  
"It's your own fault Potter, for making me sign up for the darn thing."   
  
"It's always nice to see you read something other than Playboy."   
  
"They have excellent articles."   
  
"I'm sure they do," she nodded. "But now I want to see the stupid mushiness. Where is it?" she asked happily.   
  
They had reached the edge and dark waters were before them. Pacey kneeled down on the dock and then lay down on his stomach, straightening his body while his hands lingered over the edge.   
  
"Get down here, Jo."   
  
Clearly confused, but nonetheless intrigued, she followed his lead and was soon on her stomach next to him. The flashlight in his hand bobbed and the light hit the black water a few times before settling unsteadily on one of the supports under the dock.   
  
"There," he said.   
  
"There what?" She squinted.   
  
He shifted and moved until he got closer to the piece of wood under the dock. "There."   
  
She squinted again and barely, she could make out the lettering. Pacey and Joey, Summer of True Love.   
  
"When did you do this?" she asked quietly.   
  
He kept the flashlight on the letters. "The first night we got back. After you fell asleep, I went up to the deck and I just had to do this for some reason. I dove into the water with my pocket knife and swam over here, holding onto that piece of wood for dear life until I finished carving it out," he smiled.   
  
"Why on this dock?"   
  
Pacey frowned. "You don't remember?"   
  
She shook her head.   
  
"This was where we docked when we got back."   
  
She nodded, but clearly chastised herself for not remembering. After a few moments, she laughed softly to herself as she got up. She patted down her clothes, trying to remove the debris of the dock, smiling.   
  
"What, Potter?"   
  
"That was definitely stupider and mushier than what I did."   
  
"Yeah, well...we all do stupid things when we're in love," he said as he got up.   
  
"Can't argue with you there." Joey sat down on the pier, while he sat on the opposite side. She sighed after stretching out her legs before her. "Things are going to change when they get back, huh?"   
  
He met her eyes. "I think they'll have to."   
  
Joey nodded and turned her eyes to the small rays of light pushing away the darkness. "It's morning and we didn't even get a chance to sleep."   
  
"I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway," he shrugged and watched the shadows of night disappear with her.   
  
"I have something for you," she said softly, pulling out something from her coat pocket. She had placed it there before they left the house, wanting to give it to him before they got back. When he could see it fully, he saw that it was an object dangling from some sort of chain. "I know spending your summer in Capeside wasn't exactly what you had planned," she paused. "We both know Pacey Witter would have rather been on a boat somewhere, and I'm sorry you didn't get to do that this summer."   
  
"Thank you."   
  
She smiled. "You haven't even seen it yet."   
  
"Not for the gift, but for this summer. Getting to spend time with you."   
  
"Oh," her voice faltered. "You're welcome. I - I had fun, too."   
  
"I never said anything about fun," he teased.   
  
"Well, we'll just pretend you did. Anyway, here." She handed the gift over to him, placing it into his open hand. It was a key chain with a small, blue boat hanging from the chain. "I would have gotten the real thing, but apparently those suckers don't come cheap."   
  
He laughed. "Thank you, Joey."   
  
"You're welcome. The key chain is just until the real thing comes along someday and it will Pace."   
  
His hand closed over the gift and held it tightly. "By the way, I just wanted to run this by you again." He took a breath. "If I were lucky enough one day to find myself owning a sailboat again - "   
  
"You wouldn't have to ask, Pace," she interrupted.   
  
He smiled, clearly pleased. "That's what I thought."   
  
"No need to be arrogant about it," she said, rolling her eyes.   
  
"What would Pacey Witter be like without any arrogance?"   
  
"Well, he wouldn't be Pacey Witter."   
  
"Exactly," he said, getting up and offering her his hand. She took it and he helped her up. Slowly, they strolled toward the car. Somehow, they were holding hands now. It was funny how she hadn't noticed how that had happened.   
  
The sun was waking up, casting some light on them. Pacey smiled and held up the key chain, his sailboat. "Since I don't have to ask..."   
  
"I was expecting something bigger."   
  
"I'll show you something bigger," he said salaciously.   
  
"Not that," she glared playfully. " I was also expecting something seaworthy."   
  
"Maybe you should save up a little more money next time. See what five bucks will get you."   
  
"Hey! That key chain was $6.95."   
  
He smiled, but stopped her. Brushing a hair away from her face gently, he stared into her eyes. "I'll get a real sailboat someday."   
  
"You don't have to," she whispered. "I'd take you with or without one."   
  
"I know," he smiled.   
  
"There's that arrogance again," she sighed.   
  
"I have to be me."   
  
She smiled. "And I just love who you are."   
  
"I love who you are, too."   
  
THE END 


End file.
